The past several election cycles have demonstrated that basic fundamentals of our electoral
system remain dangerously flawed. Instead of a single, unified national
electoral system, voting is administered by a hodgepodge collection of
state, county and local bodies setting different, and at times
conflicting electoral policies. Many of the same irregularities,
inequities and improprieties that plagued the 2000 presidential
election returned in 2004 and again in 2008. Voting machines malfunctioned and in some
cases did not work at all. Voters suffered harassment and intimidation
at the polls, many were wrongly turned away without casting a ballot,
and some were incorrectly purged from the voter rolls. Improperly
trained and underpaid poll workers gave inadequate or incorrect
information to voters. Overwhelmed with new voter registration,
election officials often produced incomplete voter rolls – and nearly a
third of our adult population remains unregistered.

To address
these deficiencies and improve upon the Help America Vote Act of 2002, The Right to Vote
Initiative has developed a series of a series of commonsense reforms to
secure the right to vote at the polls and improve the quality and
security of the electoral process. They include: